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Can the GOP Go High Tech?

RUSH: Greg in Chicago. I'm glad you waited. It's great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I'm a fourth-time caller since 1990 and I've not missed many of your shows since that time. On behalf of my World War II dad who was buried in 2010 in an honor flight T-shirt and a Rush Limbaugh tie, thank you so much for what you do.

RUSH: Wow. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that.

CALLER: Great. Rush, earlier in the show you talked about not giving up your freedoms, and you're totally correct. And the point of my call is to sharpen this argument for the conservative community and to make a distinction between the analysis process itself versus the inclusion of data volunteered by private companies that can be accessed on demand seemingly by government without any safeguards, and then what safeguards are built into the process once the analysis process starts. And the reason why I bring that up is in the nineties I was a project manager for a company here in Chicago that played a formidable role in developing what is now known as advanced predictive modeling, and to make that easy, that's taking anything and breaking it down to its attribute level, like your iced tea, its various sizes, flavors, sweetened or nonsweetened, and then taking that all into a database, analyzing it and finding patterns and likely behavior.

RUSH: Let me just say at the outset here as we go back to Greg in Chicago, this is not gonna assist our low-information outreach, I understand that. It's got a different purpose. Okay, Greg, pick up. So you are into predictive modeling, and you think what the government ought to be doing is letting us have a say in the data that they grab?

CALLER: Well, what I'm saying, the first point I want to make is, conservatives need to be clear between the advance modeling process, because it's here, and it works. We just saw it work in Boston in finding those two guys very quickly --

RUSH: Yeah, but it did not stop -- now, wait a minute, I reject that. It didn't prevent it, and that's what they tell us this is all about, and it didn't stop it. They rejected the data they had. They rejected the data they had on these two guys. And that Boston bomb --

CALLER: Rush, come on. You're never going to be able to able to take all of humanity's predictive behaviors and be able to capture 'em all, but this, believe me, does a better job of trying to prevent it. What we need to do is not denigrate the process itself because it works. Here, you want a good case in point of who I'm trying to get involved in it? Axelrod's got somebody from the grocery business here in Chicago setting down an Aon building using this. That's the reason why the Republicans keep getting their butt kicked, and the Republicans don't have a clue that this exists. That's the reason why. After the election there was talk about the technology the Democrats got. So what my point is is what needs to be done by the conservative community is not denigrate the analysis process because it does work, there are benefits to it. But when the government gets their hands on this data, can they just go in to Verizon and ask for all of that data without any buy-in on us? I kind of feel violated as a Verizon customer to be honest with you right now.

RUSH: They did. You don't have any say about this at all. None of us do. And then if their algorithms -- and I use the term laughingly. I know what an algorithm is, and I hear all these intelligentsia say, "Don't worry, Rush, the algorithms are gonna --" After they algorithm this and they find their patterns that hopefully will tell them about the next set of Tsarnaev brothers that they're gonna ignore, then they can go ask for content, then they can go ask for recordings of the phone calls. And nobody's gonna deny 'em that. They go to the FISA court, "Look, we suspect here that the guy that called Rush Limbaugh from Chicago who was talking about predictive analysis in modeling of computer data is actually working with somebody that might intend harm," and bammo, they're gonna go ask for a record of this call.

You're not gonna know it, I'm not gonna know it, and even if we did we're not gonna be able to stop it. I'm using an extreme example. You're talking about the Republicans learning how to identify voters and their patterns and reach them using high tech, and you're absolutely right. The Republicans are clueless. However, I saw the other day that the Republicans have hired a former Google engineer to lead their effort to get up to speed on high tech. I think it's a former Google the guy. It might have been a former Apple guy. It might have been a former Microsoft guy. I forget. It's a former high-tech guy who's gonna work with them.

Now, my concern about that is, are they hiring a saboteur? Are they gonna give the guy an ideological test? Are they gonna find out that this guy's actually one of them? I hate to say this, but my fear is that the Republicans going out and hiring high-tech people to help 'em get up to speed on what the Democrats do, which means get up to speed with Google 'cause that's who's running the Democrats. You know, all this talk about how many times what's-his-face, Shulman, IRS guy, went to the White House, I want to see how many times Eric Schmidt has been in there. I'd like to know how many times Eric Schmidt of Google has been in there. Because Google, they deny this of course, they deny that they're working ideologically. They admit that they offer their generic expertise. But they're fundraising.

Look at what Google does with their search results. You know, search me or any conservative and find out what you get. It's clear that Google has a political preference, and that's fine. They're entitled to it. But I understand what you mean about the Republicans needing to use high tech, but I don't think that's the same thing here as what we're talking about with the FISA act. Predictive modeling and so forth makes perfect sense for what the Republicans need to do, and I know your grocery example, stocking shelves and that it's brilliant what can be done with inventories and that kind of thing. It is. It really is. And it could be brilliant in ascertaining where your votes are and how to get them.

But those are aboveboard, transparent uses of high tech and databases in order to advance your organization, your company, or whatever. This stuff that we're talking about, is I think of a completely different nature. But, Greg, you're a great guy. I really appreciate your call. I thank you for your opening comments.

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RUSH: Here's Bill in Riverton, Illinois. Great to have you, sir, here on Open Line Friday.

CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh. Thank you for taking my call --

RUSH: You bet!

CALLER: -- and thank you for putting on a quality radio show day after day, year after year, et cetera. I really appreciate it. I was asked to go quickly, so I will. I'll do my best. I wondered if maybe you could help me sort this out, and the comment is that the administration has to be happy about the Verizon information that's out now about Verizon and the eight other carriers, et cetera, et cetera. Because, to me, that is a lot more defensible than the IRS of late, than the snooping on the media of late, and Benghazi that was becoming so indefensible.

RUSH: Well, I understand. This comes up every time there is a lot of attention focused on, like, the IRS scandal or Benghazi. Something else happens and then, "Uh-oh! No, we're losing sight. We're losing focus. That is a distraction." I understand what you're saying. I think in this case the Tea Party people haven't forgotten about the IRS scandal, and neither have we here. I think this just added on to it. I don't think this is making people forget about this other stuff.

I think in the midst of all those other things, now we get this? And it's just added weight. Believe me, I have two stories in the Stack here that I didn't get to today about how much trouble Obama is in. One of them is Fred Barnes. The other is a UK newspaper. I didn't get to 'em 'cause I frankly don't believe it. But you know what? I'll keep 'em for Monday. I'll run 'em by you and see what you think. There are some people that think that Obama is in really deep doo-doo over this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, Fred Barnes believes, ladies and gentlemen, that... Where is it? He doesn't think that it's scandal; he thinks its previous Obama decisions that are causing the demise of his administration. I'll save all that. We'll get to it on Monday.